Vizion Interactive» Vizion Admin

Everyone wants to use WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System)

Vizion Admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:34:04 +0000

More and more websites are using WordPress as a platform to build their entire site — and not just their blog. In our experience, WordPress can be a powerful ally in your online presence. It’s abilities reach far beyond Blogging and Websites themselves. You can use it to build full-scale Web Applications, Social Media Networks, and even Online Stores. With WordPress, and many great plugins like Pods, you are no longer subject to the restraints of built-in functionality. Did we mention it takes us less time to develop on this platform than many of the leading CMS platforms?

WordPress has many great features besides being extremely user-friendly. Here are some of our favorite features that come in handy:

Full standards compliance
Blog Posts and Comments
Pages
Custom Theming / Plugins to extend WordPress
RSS feeds
Spam protection
User management
Easy installation and upgrades
Built-in migration tools
SEO-ready, and further functionality available from Plugins

We used WordPress and the Pods CMS Plugin to develop our new site. What the Pods plugin does, is allows us to create and manage custom content types – like Press Releases or our Portfolio.

From there, we were able to customize how each type of content shows on our website. Consequently, it’s now possible for us to easily manage our new WordPress Plugins page of our website where it would have taken significantly longer development. Let us help you to migrate your existing website to a WordPress content management system or redesign/development a new website. Contact us today to get started!

I recently gave a presentation on using WordPress as a CMS at WordCamp Dallas 2009. I was one of 17 speakers including the Founder of Automattic and WordPress himself, Matt Mullenweg. For my presentation’s introduction, I wrote a song titled “WordPress as a CMS“. Check out live footage from one audience member here — there is also a studio recording and Music Video in the works!

How To Know If You Need A Dedicated Server

Vizion Admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:58:59 +0000

Ask yourself these questions and the answers just might save you thousands per month on Server costs!

What type of hosting is available?

Usually, web hosts offer these types of hosting packages:

Shared Hosting – You are hosted on a server with other websites, like people on a bus (depending on your host, you shouldn’t be too cramped!).
Reseller Hosting – You are hosted on a server with other websites, but you have the ability to resell your space or more easily manage your websites separately.
Dedicated Server – You have an entire server exclusively reserved for yourself, and you have the ability to resell your space or more easily manage your websites separately.

How many visitors do I have?

If you have over 20 visitors per minute you may want to start looking for a Dedicated Server. The amount of load you are putting on your Shared Hosting account may be hurting other websites on that server. Some hosts have restrictions on the amount of load your website can put on a server before they shut you off. Don’t risk that unnecessary downtime and be proactive.

How many websites do I have?

If you have over 20 websites, many times it may be cheaper and easier to manage using a Dedicated Server or Reseller package.

How much space do I need?

Not many web hosts willingly keep Shared Hosting accounts that use their hosting for “Backup” purposes. If you need over 30-40gb of space, you simply need to consider a Dedicated Server. Otherwise, if you need that much space, more than often your site already has a high-volume of visitors which would also mean you still need to consider a Dedicated Server.

How many IP Addresses do I need?

In most cases, you will want a separate IP address for each of your websites. Most of the time, Dedicated Servers come with 5 or more Dedicated IP Addresses for you to use. Consider this when weighing your upgrade options on potential Shared Hosting plans.

Everyone who is Anyone has a Dedicated Server, shouldn’t I?

Only if you have determined that you actually need a Dedicated Server should you get one. Otherwise, just go with Shared Hosting and you’ll most likely be covered. There is no “street cred” for having your own server.

Now where can I get what I need?

This is a question that I’ve personally been trying to answer for the past 8 years. I’ve been through over 12 hosts and none of them have kept my business.. until HostGator. They have Green Hosting which means, they do more than their part in helping minimize their environmental impact as a company. They constantly have specials offering you 20% off your initial order. That means if you sign up for a year or up to 3, you could save huge amounts of money in addition to their multiple-month discounts! They have 24/7 support that rarely needs to be used since their service is top-notch.

I loved them so much that I recommended them to Vizion Interactive and I’m proud to say that HostGator is now our preferred vendor for Hosting. If you don’t want to take our word for it, then try checking out what thousands of people have already raved about on their Web Hosting Awards and Reviews page.

imeem – Major Security Glitch Exposes Private / Personal Information and Allows Account Hijacking

Vizion Admin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:24:53 +0000

On August 25th, 2008 – a major security glitch appeared on imeem.com, a Social Media Network which allows it’s users to post Music, Video, and Photos.

The issue involves users who log in and validated through the log in process only to find themselves in someone else’s account. The users log in using their own account’s information — however, they are actually logged into someone (appears to be random) else’s account. They can modify this account just like if they were actually logged into this person’s account using that person’s login credentials. This exposes the user’s private / personal information and allows account hijacking to be done. Once logged into the other user’s account you can send messages, add friends, upload media, and CHANGE private information including the other user’s password.

To see what imeem is doing about this, check out the thread in their feedback forum: Wrong username, Heeelp @.@

AIM – Come back and play?

Vizion Admin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:56:31 +0000

We use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) for a lot of our communication in the office. Today, our AIM went out for about 15-20 minutes. It wasn’t our internet connection because my AIM at home was out too. So that leads me to wonder, why has our AIM gone away? End result after searching for an answer, it must have been a scheduled AIM server update because it came back up on both computers at the same time. The world is again back to normal. This goes to show you, when AIM goes down, the stability of the universe decreases.

WordPress Tips: Get your own WordPress Plugin Information using the get_plugins() Function

Vizion Admin — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:06:45 +0000

I searched for this info and couldn’t find anything that helped me, until I thought to myself: The Plugin version is displayed on the plugins.php page of WordPress. I didn’t want to put the Plugin information in two places, making it cumbersome to update. So I tracked down the code and did some testing. I got more than I was looking for and knew I had to share.

I’m now able to pull the Plugin information in using this hook:

$plugins = get_plugins('/mypluginfolder');

This will pull in the plugin that’s located in wp-content/plugins/mypluginfolder/ and display it in an array like this:

array(1) {
["myplugin.php"]=>
array(5) {
["Name"]=>
string(18) "My Plugin"
["Title"]=>
string(95) "My Plugin"
["Description"]=>
string(78) "My Plugin does stuff!"
["Author"]=>
string(100) "Me"
["Version"]=>
string(5) "1.8.2"
}
}

I mainly wanted to pull the plugin Version to show in the plugin. This has now been accomplished and I’m a happy coder.

Excel Tips: Removing the Auto Formatting that Changes your data into Links

Vizion Admin — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:10:52 +0000

I’m a data guy. I like data. I don’t plan on putting links into my excel files and I would rather make them links individually on a case-to-case basis. This is where an option in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 comes in handy. Here are the Four Steps which I took to remove the “Auto Linking” that has bothered me for months.

1. Click that big Office Bubble Icon at the top left, yeah, that one.
2. At the bottom right of the box that pulls up, click “Excel Options”.
3. Click the “Proofing” item on the left navigation. Under “AutoCorrect options”, you will see a button of the same name — click that.
4. Under the “AutoFormat As You Type” tab, un-select the indented “Internet and network paths with hyperlinks” option (directly beneath the first heading labeled “Replace as you type”)

Wallah. There you go. While you are there, change more preferences as you see fit.